* * *
We subwayed up to a neighborhood I don’t usually have much business in, the part of the Upper East Side that’s waist-deep in old money. Bill, though, negotiated the sidewalks like he was right at home. That’s because he was. He lives as far downtown as I do—and was born in Kentucky, for Pete’s sake—but a lot of New York’s museums and galleries are up here. Bill is one of those rare New Yorkers who actually spends time in museums and galleries, looking at art.
We weren’t going to a gallery or a museum, though. At a brownstone on Madison near Seventy-fifth Bill pressed a buzzer. A man’s voice popped from the speaker: “Hey! Come on up!” and, buzzed in, we climbed a curving staircase from the days when this was someone’s grand home. On the second floor, in the open doorway of an elegantly spare office—gleaming wood floor, sunlight pouring through wide street-side windows—stood a tall and grinning Asian man.
“Bill Smith!” he said. “Way cool! Come on in.” He shook Bill’s hand, then turned to me. “Hi. I’m Jack Lee.” His words held no trace of any Asian accent, but not a New York one, either.
“Lydia Chin.”
“Bill’s partner, I know.” Jack Lee’s hand was big, his grip solid. “Come on, sit down, you guys.”
Jack Lee was around my age, nearly as tall as Bill, and in weight somewhere between us, which made him a string bean. Loose-limbed and lanky, he wore a beautiful multicolored silk tie and ironed black jeans, but no jacket. His white shirtsleeves were neatly rolled back, revealing muscled forearms. Closing the door, he pointed us to wood chairs set around a low table piled with art books. Most of what was in the waist-high bookcase behind the desk were art books, too, though some had the staid leather bindings and stamped lettering of law manuals.
Bill and I sat, and Jack Lee started to do the same, but stopped halfway. “Uh-oh. F for hospitality! I don’t have coffee or anything for you guys. Drank it up, haven’t replenished. You want something? There’s a good place a block up.” He rattled off words like a drum solo.
“Not me, I’m fine,” I said. The minimalist chair was surprisingly comfortable.
“Me, too,” said Bill. “I just had a really good cup of coffee.”
“Cool. I’m second-generation ABC from Madison, Wisconsin,” Jack Lee said to me as he sprawled onto a chair. ABC, that’s American-born Chinese. I’m first generation, myself. “I may look Chinese, but think of me as an All-American midwestern college-town boy. That way you won’t be too disappointed.”
I had to smile. “I’m already not disappointed.”
“But she wasn’t expecting anything,” Bill put in.
“Baseline zero, try not to make it worse, Jack, I get it. So, what can I do for you?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “What do you do?”
Jack Lee raised his eyebrows at Bill. “You didn’t tell her?”
“I never tell her anything. Keeps the relationship fresh.”
“‘Fresh’ isn’t the word I’d have used,” I said.
“Got you. Well, the big secret he wants me to spill is, I’m a private eye.”
“Oh.” I blinked. “No kidding?”
“Yeah, how about that? And Bill’s been promising to bring you up here for months now. You know, so we can share mysterious Chinese trade secrets. I was starting to think you didn’t exist. That he’d invented a kick-ass Chinese partner to string me along, keep the top-shelf bourbon flowing.”
“Kick-ass?”
“He was lying?”
“Not about that, no,” I said.
“I was just waiting for the moment of maximum impact,” Bill said. “I thought it would be most efficient for you to share those mysterious secrets while you worked on a case.”
“Hey,” said Jack, “you mean this isn’t just a social call? You come bearing work?”
“We might.” Bill turned to me. “Jack, as he says, may look Chinese, but that’s actually beside the point. He’s an art expert.”
“‘Expert’ is too strong a word,” Jack corrected, with Chinese modesty but an American grin. “But it’s my field. Art history, Asian art concentration.” I’d already taken note of the framed University of Chicago Ph.D. on the bookcase—which included the words “summa cum laude”—so that wasn’t news. “Life plan was to be a big-deal dealer. Came to New York to go the gallery route. But I couldn’t take it.”
“It involves sitting still,” Bill said, in explanation.
“Sad but true. So now instead of selling art, I corral it. Chase down the lost, stolen, or strayed. Bodyguard a vase on its way someplace. Check a bronze’s provenance. Make sure the dish that comes back from the restorer is the same one that was sent to be restored. Much more fun, and it keeps me out of trouble. And out of galleries. Still, galleries have their uses. That’s where I met your partner. At a Soho opening, last fall.”
I said to Bill, “You hate openings.”
“The gallery owner was a friend of mine. He’s helped me out over the years. I had to go.”
“And he’s a client of mine,” Jack said. “So, so did I.”
I looked from one to the other. “And you guys bonded over white wine, Chex Mix, and art?”
“For that show,” Jack said, “‘art’ is too strong a word. Installations made from rusty tools and broken dolls. Pretentious, ugly, and lethal.”
“See,” said Bill, “there’s that Chinese problem you have, where you won’t speak your mind. Same as Lydia.”
I knew he was expecting me to roll my eyes, so I just sat politely, listening to Jack.
“Pretty much everyone seemed to be impressed, though,” Jack said. “A lot of nodding and murmuring. ‘The juxtaposition is thrillingly unnerving.’ ‘He brings out the feminine side of steel.’ I was checking my watch to see if I could leave yet when I spotted a guy having as hard a time as I was keeping a straight face.”
“Not my fault,” Bill protested. “There was a critic waving his hands, going on about a piece made from doll heads and buzz-saw blades. Then he cut his thumb on it.”
“It was the start of a beautiful friendship. Cemented in the bar next door.”
“Though I warn you,” Bill said, “Jack drinks martinis.”
“Does that disqualify me from something?”
“Not by itself,” I said.
“So.” Jack crossed one long leg over the other. “Now that you have my CV, do you know why Bill brought you here? Besides the Chinese trade secret thing? Because if we get into that, of course we’ll have to throw him out.”
“Of course. Let’s save that for later, in case we need it. Tell me, is contemporary Chinese art on your CV?”
Jack glanced at Bill, then back to me. “Up to a point.”
“Ghost Hero Chau. Is he before or after that point?”
“Ghost Hero Chau.” Jack steepled his fingers in front of his chin. “He’s your case?”
“His paintings. Or, some new paintings that are supposed to be his.”
“Re-eally?” Jack drew the word out, giving me an odd look.
“I know, he’s dead. But that’s what my client says. New paintings.”
“Who’s your client? Okay, never mind,” he said in answer to my you-know-better smile. “But is he Chinese?”
“No. WASP, even more midwestern suburban than you are.”
“Ouch,” said Bill.
“But that’s why he came to me. He searched online for a Chinese investigator. He thinks it’ll help.”
“Hmm. Hmm, hmm hmm, hmm hmm,” Jack said. “What’s his angle? He’s been offered them and he wants you to prove the pedigree before he buys?”
“No. He hasn’t even seen them. He wants me to find them.”
“Re-eally.” Again, he drew the word out like taffy. “Why?”
“The thrill of the hunt. And, he’s the new kid in town and wants to make his collecting bones by getting his hands on them.” To the look on Jack’s face, I said, “No, we don’t buy it either. We think he just wants to corner the market and flip them during Asian Art Week. Obviously, he’s gambling they’re real, or the market’s not worth cornering.”